Children laugh, calm, in the middle of a road cut. They're used to living from crystal to crisis. It's not news. When violence goes up, Haiti appears on television. For a while. It sells violence. At least a little. But extreme poverty and endemic corruption are not spectacular, hurricanes or earthquakes are. Meanwhile, there is no political power, the law of armed groups, thousands of deaths and displaced persons, has prevailed. The emergency situation has long been marked by violence. And the solution of the so-called “international community” has been the usual one: fire. Faced with the structural problems of a failed neocolonial state, thousands of armed men are sent to Haiti, a multi-country police force, led by Kenya and recruited by the United States. That is also normal. From the Haitian historical point of view, it has been the foreign imperialist intervention that has strengthened the constant chain of crisis.

Photo: R. Espinosa – AP
Text: Axier Lopez